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"Sixteen knots, sir!" he sang out, and then we could hear the old sea dog add his customary comment, whether of approval or discontent, "Well, I'm blowed!" "By George, colonel!" cried Captain Applegarth to our melancholy-looking guest at his side. "We're going sixteen knots, sir; just think of that! I didn't believe the dear old barquey had it in her!"
While old Masters was sounding his boatswain's pipe and while busy feet were tramping aft, the men were beginning to cluster in the waist immediately below the back of the poop. And here Captain Applegarth stood stern and erect like an old lion, his cap off and his wavy grey hair fluffed out over his head by the wind.
You stay on till Saturday? I might be back in twenty-four hours." "Good. Yes; I want to have some more talk with Applegarth about that advertising proposal. I don't like to start with quite such a heavy outlay." "Nor I either," replied Godfrey, his eyes wandering. He paused, bit the end of his moustache, and added. "By the bye, the St. Neots money will be paid on Saturday, you said?"
He was a bit obstinate, though, was Mr Fosset; and "as pigheaded as a Scotch barber," as Captain Applegarth would say sometimes when he was arguing with him, for the first mate would always stick to his own opinion, no matter if he were right or wrong, nothing said on the other side ever convincing him to the contrary and making him change his mind.
I've never had occasion to doubt your word before during the years you've sailed with me, my boy, and I am not going to doubt it now." So saying, Captain Applegarth, putting his arm on my shoulder, faced round towards the first mate and Spokeshave, as if challenging them both to question my veracity after this testimony on his part in my favour.
"But, I tell you, Cap'en Applegarth, the engines can't stand it without breaking down, and then where will you be, I'd like to know?" "I'll risk that." "No, cap'en," snorted the old chief, doggedly. "I'm responsible to the owners for the engines, and if anything happened to the machinery they'd blame me. I can't do it." The skipper flew up to white heat at this.
"Cap'en, Cap'en Applegarth!" cried out the chief engineer asthmatically as soon as he got within hail, speaking in a tearful voice and almost crying in his excitement. "Are you there, sir?" "Aye, here I am, Mr Stokes, as large as life, though not quite so big a man as you," answered the skipper jocularly. "I am here on the bridge, quite at your service."
"God in heaven!" exclaimed Captain Applegarth, stopping in his quick walk up and down the saloon and bringing his fist down on the table with a bang that made the glasses in the swinging tray above jump and rattle, two of them indeed falling over and smashing into fragments on the floor. "The infernal demons! Can such things be? It is dreadful!"
At the same instant Captain Applegarth sounded the engine-room gong again, bringing the Star of the North to a dead stop as we steamed up to the boat slanting-wise, the steamer having just sufficient way on her when the screw shaft ceased revolving, to glide gently up to the very spot where the little floating waif was gently bobbing up and down on the wave right ahead of us, and barely half a dozen yards away, drifting, at the will of the wind, without any guidance from its occupants, who seemingly were unaware of our approach.
"And, tell me too, did she have a large black Newfoundland or retriever dog by her side that same evening, sir?" Colonel Vereker seemed even more astonished by this question of mine than I had been by his reply to Captain Applegarth the moment before.
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